Photo by Tasia Theoharis
Hastings, Nebraska, a town in the middle of a sea of corn, is the last place foreign exchange student Lilly Mueller-Rettstatt expected to spend her year abroad.
“It’s a small town. I thought it was in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know where Nebraska was, I had to look it up,” senior Mueller-Rettstatt said. Mueller-Rettstatt learned she would be going to Nebraska only two weeks before she left her hometown, Heilbronn, Germany.
“It was weird when I came here. When we were driving from the airport to the house, my first reaction was ‘it smells bad’,” Mueller-Rettstatt added.
For Mueller-Rettstatt, the motivation to take a year abroad in the U.S. was based on her desire to come to America and get a leg-up on the rest of her class in English.
“I wanted to experience the life. Since I was a little kid, I’ve wanted to come to America,” Mueller-Rettstatt said.
Mueller-Rettstatt had previously traveled to places such as southern France and Greece, which also fueled her desire to travel elsewhere. Since the start of the year, Mueller-Rettstatt has traveled to Omaha and Lincoln but hopes to travel to other places, such as California, when her parents visit towards the end of the year.
Mueller-Rettstatt also thinks there are some very big differences between Germany and the U.S. in roads, society, school, and food.
“Americans are really busy. I was struggling at the beginning because school, then sports, then you come late home. On some days, we got out at like twelve. It’s also different. You don’t really have to study a lot here, you do most in class,” Mueller-Rettstatt said.
She also pointed out how in Germany, they do not have clubs and sports through school, they go through an outside club to participate and how few Germans use computers in school, even in college.
Mueller-Rettstatt added on society differing from her home country. In Germany, she thinks parents act differently around their teenagers, which was surprising to her when she arrived in the States.
“They [German teenagers] act more mature. Here, the parents are more worried and teenagers aren’t allowed to do stuff,” Mueller-Rettstatt said. “Parents are less likely to let people go out here and [my host family] told me I had a curfew and I thought it was weird because I never had those rules. Germany’s not crazy, but a little more than America.”
Another difference Mueller-Rettstatt has noticed comes from food. In Germany, people eat later, around eight p.m., and wait to have lunch until school is out for the day. She also says that in Germany, few people eat at the fast food restaurants they have.
“It’s unhealthy. You have a lot of fast food. I gained a lot of weight when I came here,” Mueller-Rettstatt said. “We only have McDonald’s and Burger King, that’s the only thing[s] we have, and no one goes there.”
Mueller-Rettstatt has had some melancholy experiences during her exchange year but has ultimately enjoyed her time in Hastings.
“There are some things I really miss, like the favorite things that my mom cooks,” Mueller-Rettstatt said. “At the beginning, I didn’t even know how to speak. I’ve improved. When I go back home, I’ll also appreciate more things that I don’t have here.”
